Penny, an English bull terrier, walks past the cooling pools during the Braves' Bark in the Park , which invites fans to bring their dogs to the game.

Written by

Kim Painter
| USA Today

Pets don't just make lives fuller. They may help make them longer, says an official statement from the American Heart Association.

Owning a pet - especially a dog - seems to have heart health benefits, the group says in the statement published Thursday in the medical journal Circulation.

"The data is most robust for people who own a dog," says Glenn Levine, a cardiologist with Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. But he says there's reason to believe cats and other pets are helpful, too. ...